Current communication systems provide a spectrum of services to subscribers. Many modern communication systems, e.g., telephone communication systems and telephone networks, readily allow human-to-human, computer-to-computer and human-to-computer interactions via the transmission of audio and data over communication channels. Connection system subscribers can now access such diverse communication services as call messaging, call screening, message retrieval, call waiting, call forwarding and teleconferencing from phones and computers. The Internet is an example of a communication system that is currently being used to transmit both voice and data signals and to interface computer systems and networks with existing telephone networks.
As competition between communication service providers, e.g., regional telephone companies, Internet service providers, long distance telephone service providers, etc., increases, service providers continue to look for new ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors and to increase revenues. New services often provide a way for communication services to distinguish themselves from their competitors while, at the same time, creating new sources of revenue.
In an attempt to provide new services and increase revenues, telephone and communication service companies have offered in recent years a host of new services. Such services often take advantage of existing technology such as speech recognition, the ability to make, store and transmit voice recordings and/or the ability to transmit scheduling information over the Internet.
Voice dialing telephone service is an example of modern telephone service which involve the use of speech recognition. Voice mail is an example of a service which takes advantage of the ability to make, store and transmit voice recordings. Telephone network initiated conference calling, where a conference bridge coupled to the Internet is used to initiate a multi-party conference call, is an example of a modern service which takes advantage of the ability to transmit scheduling information over the Internet.
FIG. 1 illustrates a known telephone system 2 which includes a plurality of telephones T1-TN coupled to a telephone network conference bridge 3, via a central office telephone switch 4. A computer 5, located in the proximity of any one of the telephones T1-TN, can be used to transmit telephone conference scheduling information to the conference bridge 3 via the Internet 6 to schedule a telephone conference. The transmitted information may include, e.g., the time of the telephone conference and the telephone numbers assigned to the telephones which are to be used in the telephone conference. In the known system, the conference bridge initiates a telephone conference at the appointed time by calling each of the telephone numbers associated with a scheduled telephone conference and bridging the calls so that the audio received from any one phone is transmitted to all of the telephones involved in the scheduled conference call.
While the services discussed above, have proved useful to many subscribers and a worthy source of revenue to many communication service providers, there remains a need for new communication services which can be used to distinguish a communication service provider from its competitors and serve as a source of revenue. New communication services which augment or supplement existing services are particularly desirable because they can be used to maintain an existing subscriber base while helping to attract subscribers from competitor's services. Entirely new services which may be provided independent from existing services are also desirable as a new revenue source.
Telephone network hardware is maintained, updated and serviced by the communication service provider. Accordingly, services which can be implemented by adding or modifying a limited amount of network hardware, e.g., a peripheral server device, tend to be easier to implement on a large scale than services which require substantial new amounts of customer premise equipment. For this reason, new services which can be implemented by adding or modifying network hardware without requiring substantial changes to existing customer premise equipment tend to be more desirable than services which require new customer premise equipment or substantial modifications to customer premise equipment.
As will be discussed below, while some embodiments require new or modified customer premise equipment, e.g., telephones, many of the methods, apparatus, and services of the present invention can be implemented without the need for new customer premise equipment or substantial modifications to existing customer premise equipment.